Page 57 of Brutal for It
“Yeah,” he encourages softly. “You can.”
The door creaks like it remembers me. The scent hits next — cedar, soap, and faintly of him. He’s kept it clean, but it still feels lived in, like love has been in the air waiting for me to come back.
Tommy stands in the entryway, helmet dangling from his hand, eyes on me. “You don’t have to say anything. I just want to show you something. Be present here with me. No past, no future. Right here and right now, Tiny.”
He reaches out a hand. I take it. His palm is warm, rough, grounding.
He leads me room to room, not rushing, not narrating too much — just letting me be in the moment with him.
The kitchen first.
“This,” he starts, touching the counter, “is where you burned that first batch of pancakes trying to impress me. They were shit, babe. I grew up with a mom who cooked breakfast for her boys five days a week. Sometimes I didn’t always like the breakfast, but nothing was as bad as those pancakes. But those pancakes, Jami, they’re the best thing I’ve ever had in my life. I would eat them every day for the rest of my days if it meant I got to share a kitchen with you again.”
I laugh through the tears that come anyway. “You ate them anyway. I couldn’t even eat them. Why would you torture yourself and your stomach?”
He grins. “Because I was already gone for you, Jami.”
He steps close, cups my face, and kisses me once — gentle, soft like the memory. “Reason one,” he murmurs against my lips. “You love so hard you try even when you don’t know how.”
He takes me by the hand, leading me to the living room.
He stops by the couch, runs a hand over the worn fabric. “This is where you made me watch those terrible reality shows, remember? The ones with the couples seeking extra wives. The ones that left me wondering if you wanted a sister wife to give yourself a break from me.”
“You secretly liked them,” I tease weakly.
“Liked watching you watch them,” he mutters, eyes softening. “Reason two. You see the good in stupid things. Every couple, you explained why this would work for them. Makes the world easier to breathe in if only everyone could be as accepting as you.” He gives me a sly grin. “And Tiny, my ego appreciates the possessive side of you that would say this wouldn’t work for us because you didn’t want to share me.”
He kisses me again, slower this time, as if teaching me something, I just hadn’t figured it all out yet.
Then we head down the hallway.
Every step feels like peeling back a layer of the past. The photographs still hang — him, the club, me tucked under his arm. One of us laughing, caught mid-smile. He never took them down. That almost undoes me.
He brushes his fingers against a frame. “Reason three,” he continues. “You remind me that joy doesn’t disappear, it just waits for us to find it again.”
He leans down, pressing a kiss to my temple.
Navigating on, we go to the small office.
The old desk still sits in the corner, the bills stacked neatly, his handwriting sharp and precise. My old sketchbook rests on the shelf as if I never left.
“You kept that?” I whisper.
He shrugs. “Couldn’t throw away the thing that showed me how your mind sees color. Reason four,” he says, kissing the back of my hand. “You make ugly things beautiful.”
I’m crying now, openly, but it’s different this time — not broken, just cracked open enough for light to get through.
From here he takes me to our bedroom.
The doorway feels like standing on a ledge. The last time I stood here, I was packing a bag, my hands shaking so bad I dropped my keys. I remember Tommy’s face that day — confusion, hurt, fear. I swore I wouldn’t think about it, but memory is a mean kind of bitch that sticks around, more loyal than a dog. The past doesn’t leave even if we beg it too.
He senses it. “We can stop here.”
“No,” I say, wiping my eyes. “Show me.”
He nods and leads me inside.
The bed is made. Fresh sheets. My old blanket folded at the end. It looks smaller than I remember, or maybe I’m just bigger now — filled with everything I’ve endured.
